Wofford Office for Civil Rights, Compliance and Community Initiatives

Please join us for the Spartanburg Jazz Ensemble's annual Wofford Jazz Night!

WHEN: Tuesday, April 7 at 7:30 PM WHERE: Tony White Theater, Mungo Student Center

The concert is free and open to the public!

This year's featured artist is acclaimed jazz trumpeter and vocalist Benny Benack III. For more about Mr. Benack, please visit https://www.bennybenackjazz.com/

Wofford College invites you to "A Candid Conversation with Rahm Emanuel." Join Mr. Emanuel and Craig Melvin on April 1 at 5 PM in Leonard Auditorium.

Please join us for a evening with award-winning spoken word artist Black Chakra!

DATE: March 4, 2026
TIME: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: Leonard Auditorium

This presentation may contain adult language and themes.

Black Chakra on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnkLBKgySkQ&list=PLBA20wsKEkbCTBpzq9pwPrqtHo_2pg3BN

Wofford is honored to welcome Dr. Edda Fields-Black, 2025 winner of the Pulitzer Prize in history, as its 2026 Black History Month keynote speaker!

WHEN: February 17, 2026, at 6:00 PM
WHERE: Olin Teaching Theater

Dr. Fields-Black will be discussing COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid and Black Freedom during the Civil War, which "shows how Tubman commanded a ring of spies, scouts and pilots, and played a central role in military expeditions behind Confederate lines, including the raid on June 2, 1863, which liberated 756 people. It was the largest slave rebellion in US history."

The event will be a moderated conversation featuring Wofford's Dr. Tracy Revels and Dr. Dwain Pruitt.

The event is free and open to the public.

Wofford College is proud to announce that the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, has agreed to deliver its 2026 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day lecture on Saturday, January 17.

Dr. Barber will present "We Are Called to Be a Movement" at 11:30 AM in Wofford's Leonard Auditorium. He will also be signing copies of two of his books that afternoon. A limited number of books will be available for purchase onsite.

This event is free and open to the public. We anticipate significant community interest, so we are asking attendees to register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/we-are-called-to-be-a-movement-tickets-1978449275040?aff=oddtdtcreator

DATE: November 17, 2025
TIME: 7:00 PM
LOCATION: Leonard Auditorium

The Dunlap Chamber Music Series will bring Cantus to Wofford College on November 17, 2025.

Cantus is a professional low-voice vocal ensemble celebrated for its warmth and blend, innovative programming, and wide-ranging repertoire from Renaissance to contemporary music. For this concert, they present Land That I Love, a program celebrating America’s diverse heritage through captivating music by composers whose migration stories shape their work, from Saunder Choi and Chen Yi to Gloria Estefan and Bob Marley.

Admission is free, and doors open at 6:30 p.m.

For more about Cantus, visit https://www.cantussings.org/about-cantus/

Join us this week for Wofford's production of "Macbeth." Shows are available on November 12, 13, 14 and 15. Curtain time each night is 7:00 PM.

Admission is $12 public, $10 for Wofford employees and $5 for students. Seating is limited. The box office opens an hour prior to showtime.

To purchase tickets online, please visit https://wofford.universitytickets.com/

Would you like to learn more about jazz's early history from the son of a jazz pioneer with an interesting connection to Spartanburg?

Wofford College and SIREN (Spartanburg Initiative for Racial Equality Now) are partnering to welcome Noble Sissle, Jr., to Spartanburg. Mr. Sissle is uniquely qualified to discuss early jazz history. His father was a jazz pioneer who, among other things, was a member of World War I's famous Harlem Hellfighters and, along with his partner, Eubie Blake, co-wrote Broadway's first all-Black musical, 1921's Shuffle Along.

A reception will follow.

WHEN: 6:00 PM on NOVEMBER 6, 2025
WHERE: OLIN 101

Copies of Cassen Gaines' When Broadway Was Black will be available for purchase and signature.

The Wofford community is invited to come meet Courtney McClain, who is campaigning to represent South Carolina's Fourth Congressional District. Ms. McClain will be discussing the urgent need for Gen Z to participate in contemporary state and national politics. She will also talk about possible internship opportunities with her campaign. Lunch will be provided. Co-sponsored by the Career Center in the Mungo Exchange and the Office for Civil Rights, Compliance, and Community Initiatives.

DATE: NOVEMBER 5
TIME: 11:30 AM
LOCATION: Career Center

DATE: October 22, 2025
TIME: 4 PM
PLACE: McMillan Theater

Furman University's Dr. Kathleen Casey will present "Q***r History and the Possibilities of Purses," based on her new book The Things She Carried: A Cultural History of the Purse in America.

Her presentation will specifically focus on the relationships between LGBTQ+ Americans and their purses in the second half of the twentieth century. From gay men who used purses to silently announce their sexuality, to transwomen who studied how to discreetly carry a purse that could hold a change of clothes and alternative forms of ID, this presentation will explore how purses have functioned as a particularly potent object – a source of both liberation and vulnerability - for q***r Americans.

Please join us in OLIN 101 at 6:00 PM on September 25, 2025, for a conversation with Lee Hawkins, Jr., about his new book, I Am Nobody's Slave: How Uncovering My Family's History Set Me Free.

The award-winning journalist's acclaimed memoir examines the cultural and historical forces that both shaped and scarred his family.

The event is free and open to the public. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signature.